Paul rushes down, raises him from the dead, then runs back upstairs, breaks bread, eats and resumes talking until dawn…at which time the others take the formerly dead guy home to rest…ROTFL!!!
To do so is very disrespectful. And in the picture you have there the only book lying down with English books on top it is the… khumash! Please remove the picture in the interest of comity. He loves to laugh. The meanings of names also can be humorous at times. The account in Genesis 19 is a good example. God tells Lot, after he flees Sodom, to go to the mountains.
Lot, however, in fear of fleeing to the mountains, requests to go to a nearby city. This has double meanings. Also humorous is that fact that Lot eventually leaves Zoar to go to the mountains anyway! God must have laughed! The greatest mirth I derive from Scripture, as a whole, is that God always has the last word over all our situations and all the other people in our lives.
Thanks for the article Robin. Thanks also to the respondents. Whilst you do recognise the punch line, I think you have — in some ways missed the joke. Amy Jill Levine, published elsewhere in this publication, suggests that by having a Priest and Levite walk by that the audience would have then expected an Israelite.
That the third character is a Samaritan is indeed surprising, especially if we consider that the accosted man might have been Jewish: after all enmity between Jews and Samaritans seems to have been mutual. Larry, her interpretation is consistant with Exodus ,26, in that she found humor in natural occuring scriptural formations. Although I suspect it is true that the rulers then did not like to be laughed at as is the case today. As a child brought up in a very straight laced family I was shocked when our new Minister cracked jokes from the pulpit!
Many years later I was equally shocked by the portrayal in a television programme of Jesus having fun with his followers. Now in my late sixties I am so grateful that our God has a great sense of humour. It has carried us through many difficult times. Prof Robin Gallaher Branch has an knack of finding and pointing out what should perhaps be obvious and helps us to see humour in Scripture where we had perhaps not seen it before.
Thank God for laughter. Which reminds me of an old story. The cop noticed his silver flask on the passenger seat, and asked what was in it. The priest replied that it was holy water, and the cop asked to check it. Opening the lid, he sniffed, then tasted, a fine Irish whiskey. Which brings up the question, did the Romans tax homemade Jewish wine?
I doubt it, but if anyone finds a receipt for alcohol taxes, please let us know. This is a lovely article with some delightful examples, but there have been others who have written on this topic. After my husband and I had a trip to Israel a long time ago and tried the Cana wine— it really is funny.
My favorite humorous story in the Hebrew Bible is Moses confronting Aaron with the golden calf. So glad to see scholars talking about humor in the Bible. God gives us freedom, and nothing is more liberating than laughter. Getting a camel a non-Kosher beast, by the way through the eye of a needle, literally or metaphorically, is inherently ludicrous, for example. In other words, their allegiance to their religious beliefs CAUSED them or at least provided a valid excuse to avoid helping a human being.
One example of this attitude today is the hostile attitude toward health care reform by politicians who have a quasi-religious ideology telling them that IF people can only get help THAT WAY, then the people who need help should not BE helped. And in this parable, He pointed out that even people who do NOT belong to the fellowship of the Torah know the most important parts of it instinctively, as part of being human, and can please the Lord more than uncompassionate, bigoted religious extremists.
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May 6, at am. Kirk says:. February 27, at pm. Art says:. February 23, at pm. SethZ says:. February 15, at am. Larry Giddens says:. February 12, at pm. Mary says:. October 31, at pm. Tiago says:. September 26, at pm. May 31, at pm. Kimberly says:. September 10, at am. John Rothschild says:. September 7, at pm. Ed Chy says:. July 18, at pm. Chuck Somerville says:. May 3, at pm.
Charles says:. James D. Burgoon says:. November 8, at pm. Wynterr says:. October 3, at am. The anxious parents head back to Jerusalem where they find Jesus and give him the what-for. Luke 2. Peter heads to a house where friends are praying and knocks at the outer entrance door.
Fugitive Peter is left to keep knocking while his friends debate whether Rhoda is correct. Acts Before Peter has the pleasure of being ignored at the door, it falls to him to defend speaking in tongues as the work of the Holy Spirit, not the work of the bottle, which is how some witnesses interpret the situation on Pentecost.
Read it with the mind of an eighth-grader and enjoy. Song of Solomon. They urge him to stay with them. This little walk is its own delightful drama, one given a light touch by Jesus himself.
Luke Paul and Silas are stripped, beaten and thrown into prison in Philippi. Bear with me; this does turn funny. When the magistrates finally decide to release them, Paul says not so fast, casually mentioning that he and Silas are Roman citizens. And of course, we're conditioned to that whole not-a-humorous-book approach. Maybe it isn't — but some of it is. I don't believe the person who recorded the death of King Jeroham in 2 Chronicles , writing: "He passed away , to no one's regret" lacked humour.
And what about David in 1 Samuel ? He pretends to be insane before Achish, king of Gath, to avoid being returned to Saul. Achish says to his servants: "Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here? Elijah's fond of sarcasm, too. His great contest with the prophets of Baal over which God could light his own sacrifice — a pretty comical idea in itself — sees him mocking them 1 Kings with the suggestion that he might be on the lavatory, though politer translations tend to obscure this point.
I've always enjoyed Balaam's conversation with his donkey Numbers I can't believe that the words: "Am I not your own donkey? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you? And then there's Jonah. Not only was he thrown into the sea and sicked up by a fish, but the crowning misery was still to come: the inhabitants of Nineveh wouldn't perish in fire and brimstone after all, but actually repented. The image of the prophet sulking under the shade of a vine because God spared the people is just priceless — and then when "God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered", the comedy is complete: all this, and sunstroke too.
Proverbs, of course, is a goldmine of humour, not all of it very politically correct. Or how about ?
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